New Employee Onboarding
New employee onboarding should be more than dumping a wheelbarrow worth of paper and manuals on the new person’s desk and saying, “Welcome To The Company.” This is the time to show them your remarkable company culture and to make them feel not only welcome but valued.
This should actually start once the employee has signed and returned the offer letter. Depending upon the size of the company, at the very least the department manager where the employee will work should reach out and welcome them aboard. If you have the infrastructure, other leaders of the company should reach out as well. Have new employee team send the new employee welcome emails about what they like about the company, department, etc.
It’s a great idea to let them know what the first week of the new job will look like. Share with them their company phone number, email, and other tools they will need from the start if available. Make sure to get started on setting up a workspace for them, office supplies, provisioning computers, identification badge, necessary initial training, and other crucial items.
For goodness sakes, make sure current employees know this person is starting on Monday. Can you imagine showing up for a new job and no one even knows you are coming? Depending upon the work HR who hired them so they can gain access to the office.
Don’t feel like you have to cover everything with them immediately on the first morning they walk in the door. Get them through all the must-haves as soon as possible. For the important things like insurance, if you are not well versed in the coverage offered, please make sure they have access to someone that does have that information.
For the other things, stretch it out over the next week or so depending on up how voluminous the material. Provide information such as how, when, and what they will be evaluated on. Also, cover training and educational programs available to them.
For the first week or so, schedule some time at the beginning of the day and the end of the day to have short 15-20 minute check-ins just to make sure they have everything they need and there are no significant problems. Over the next three weeks, check in weekly; then, move to a 60-day and 90-day check-in. This should get you over the first 80-90 days. It would not hurt to create a short to-do list they could work off of until they got on their own feet.
Make sure to expand introductions from the new employee’s department to other departments as well. This will introduce them to others they may eventually have a need to work with or gain information from.
This is such a critical time in a new employee’s tenure. Providing them with the needs support will mean the difference in making a long-term employee and sending another requisition to HR.
This is also the time to assign a mentor. Mentors will be covered more in the next steps found on this webpage.
New Employee Onboarding Guide (shrm.org)